Hi everyone, so we understand that this situation is complicated, multi-layered, and something that needs to be carefully deconstructed. So, considering all of that, we have tried our absolute best to treat it with the care it deserves. We have done our due diligence, and we will be breaking down each of these screenshots below.
For those who do not know, for the last few years Claire has been subject to a targeted harassment campaign, as mentioned by her here. This is not the first or last time this will happen. This stems from her abusers, who are known for creating multiple burner accounts to spread misinformation, mentioned in her testimony 2 years ago. I have worked with Claire closely to get her side of this story and to produce this document. She has helped add context where it was missing, and proof to back this up. Some evidence here will be missing.The evidence she provided me showed me not only proof of their abuse towards her, but their plan to deplatform them both. I cannot share this evidence with you today. She has trusted me with this evidence as her employer, and her comfort is my main priority. If Claire wishes to speak about the abuse she was subject to and to share this evidence, that is her choice, and a story she must tell when and if she is ready. We also have proof that the abuser uses multiple fake accounts on twitter to try and spread discourse, as seen in Claire's above testimony. Often acting under the guise of a concerned citizen. Although we have confirmation for some of these accounts, we do not know them all.
I want to start with Michelle's recent testimony. Michelle is often used as the main point of contention that Gabriel is a groomer and that he actively hung around young children. Some have even gone so far as to say that Michelle is no longer friends with Gabriel due to him potentially grooming her.
I already knew that Michelle is on good terms with Gabriel and that he shared the same manager as her, Michelle's mother. The reason Gabriel was around Michelle so much was because of this. They were under a signed contract as performance partners. This was well known back when they were working together. Read Michelle’s side and testimony here.
Now, let’s get to the evidence involving Claire.
I want to start with the anniversary cake
Remember, look at the evidence, not the narrative that the poster has added to this. Notice how they dismiss the idea of it being a joke so you won’t further look into this. Despite the very clear caption from Gabe with laughing emojis and the hashtag “happy anniversary indeed”
I found the video and I watched it. You should watch it, too. Here it is transcribed
Gabe: Claire, what have you done…it's so cute!
Gabe: Ok…I have to ask, you are such a con artist. [laughing]
Claire: [laughing] Every time on my birthday they give me free desserts…I wondered what the difference is for this?
I spoke to Claire about this evidence, this above video is from their first date. When she was 20 and asked him out.
But, forget the video, look at what Gabe was responding to
Claire posting #HappyAnniversary #IAmaConArtist #SueMe #JK #IHaveNoUSD
This was clearly a joke and a lie Claire told to get free dessert, the hashtags and nature of the video would make no sense otherwise.
This context was provided to me by Claire. Gabe came to film this documentary. He was invited by Ian, Claire’s father, via his agent to record a professional video, with her parents and his agent involved. Notice how Gabe is wearing the same outfit in the documentary.
Claire felt it important to add that the room in the instagram photo is also the one from the documentary, as it as shot in their house.
Part of the evidence presented by the accusers is that Gabe and Claire hung out multiple times because of multiple photos and videos of them together, however, Claire informed me that a lot of the videos and images and pictures they use were shot in the same session. They were for professional promotional use set up by their agents. Sadly, some of the videos are lost to time, but it's clear that this was meant for promotional material with Claire's father even being tagged. Check the dates:
Use the twitter advanced search if you’d like to see the tweets too.
Their meetings focused around content creation or working at conventions with a lot of their tweets focusing on marketing for that material. A lot seemed to be on Vine. Sadly the vines are gone so we are lacking the full context.
Image above from Bronies React: Crusaders of the Last Mark, Claire informed me that this was filmed the same day as The Whisper Challenge, along another video that has been lost to time. It is important to note that part of the evidence used was to imply that Gabe and Claire had a pattern of hanging out regularly, a lot of the evidence used is from one day of shooting. The dates of the videos make it clear. It was done for a professional promotional series of videos organized by their agents. It is commonplace for creators to produce more than multiple videos and images in one session to post across many days to help promote the creators platform. You should ALSO note that it can take time to edit a video too. This may give the appearance that they met multiple times, rather than in the one instance for work.
Here we have an instagram post made the day they recorded the above video. Note the setting and outfits.It was posted in October 2015. The videos they made together did not release until November 12th.
I’ve had to sift through every instagram and twitter post between Claire and Gabe. The few instances that they were posted together seem to be at conventions or work shoots.
If anything I noticed the extreme LACK of Gabe in any of these posts. He only seemed to appear at events where they both naturally would be, working for the same show
He was flirting with Nora, the person he is close with in this photo
We can see that the evidence provided has been cropped to not include Nora’s response to this.
However, to approach this from a different perspective, let's argue that it was about Claire. Look at the actual dates of the tweets. Claire was 20 years old when this conversation was happening. This is edited to draw your eye to Claire's age being 17 in the photo. There is nothing inappropriate happening in this photo. Gabe speaks in the present tense about having a crush within their friendship group.
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It’s weird how Gabe uses the word “Y’all” here. A plural term. We can even see he is responding to Nora too here via the reply function. Make sure you use the advanced twitter search to see the below proof. Twitter's website has changed so the reply does not appear unless you use this function.
The result seems to be made in jest, I don’t sincerely think that Gabe was confessing falling in love with two people here. A very tongue in cheek response to two people flattering him.
I spoke to Claire. This was not about Gabe, they both knew it wasn’t about Gabe. The only reason you think it’s about Gabe is because of the text the poster has added. Let's look at the rest of the thread.
Sadly, half this conversation is missing. Accounts seem to be deleted, but there is no proof that this was Gabe teasing her about her crush on him but about a crush he knew she had on someone else. This was only speculation on the accusers part.
This final screenshot
There seems to be some sort of inside joke here that was potentiality discussed in person at the convention Whinny City 2017 April. We do not know what they said in person, so we cannot assume
I feel if Gabe had the intent of grooming Claire, he would not be making such jokes in public. I also feel that if he was careless, there would be more proof of this. This screenshot helps to prop up the other evidence, but alone it does not serve much, it is not proof of grooming.
Final Word
Over the last few days I have been told to kill myself, I have been misgendered, and my intentions twisted. I have also seen people insult my team members and their work, despite them not being associated with any of this. When I asked for evidence they would not provide it but instead try to deplatform me too. They made it so I couldn’t respond to their tweets and blocked anyone with evidence that refutes their claims. They even stated I was blocking people when I was not, the person who claimed I blocked them admitted they had made a mistake. See below where they admit they were mistaken about me blocking them.
Every time I asked this person for any form of evidence they would deflect. They implied they saw inappropriate behavior between a minor and adult but did not report it to the police or intervene.
When they said they reported it to con staff I asked for the name of the person they reported to. Someone I could verify their story with. Nothing. This led me to become suspicious that this may be another burner account.
The burner accounts usually relate to being a my little pony fan. They have limited posts. A few quick retweets to look legit, but almost no posting history. We cannot say for sure who is a burner account and who is not, so please take this all with a grain of salt and do not go out of your way to directly accuse people.
I want to make it clear that I would never defend a groomer. The people that know Ash and myself believe this too. We constantly strive to try and be good people. Our game is a testament for what we want to build, for what we want to put out into the world. We are LGBTQ+ neurodivergent creators, with a strong mission for putting good out into the world.
However, I understand why people were quick to spread this. We live in a world where bad people exist. I have seen people I follow turn out to be terrible people, I have been hurt and betrayed before. It’s hard to trust anyone online, and it's good to be vigilant. We will make mistakes, very public mistakes, and I count on the community we’ve built to hold us accountable and tell me when we are wrong. We will make sure to communicate, we will make sure to keep improving.
I have spent the last 6 years of my life building a game and community of people that I have grown to love and appreciate. As sad as it may sound, our game gives me a reason to live, it makes me happy. I wake up every day feeling lucky to be able to work on it. It’s my special interest. Even when I'm not working, I'm doing something related to Billie Bust Up. I have stated over the course of its development that this is my life's work. It is a reflection of us. People have told me they will not buy our game if it has LGBTQ+ characters, I have told them I do not care.
I would not sacrifice everything I have built for Gabe, my life's work…however…I could never live with myself if I made a selfish decision and chose to kick Claire and Gabe off our project to save myself when I know they are innocent. We have already recorded all the game's lines, and have animated them to lip sync. I could have easily promised to just recast him for future games and explained that we couldn’t afford it. I would have been celebrated for it too. I would have been seen as a good person. But I don’t want to be seen as a good person, I want to be a good person. I feel that involves doing your due diligence. To look into things. I looked into things because I wanted to be sure we DIDN’T have a groomer. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t bother putting time into this now. I would also not forgive myself if I allowed a groomer to stay on the team.
There is no benefit for me to stand up for him. I understand some people will still hate me for keeping them, but knowing what I know, seeing what I’ve seen, I can see that this was a targeted hate campaign by Claire’s abusers to cause both her and Gabe great suffering. Claire is also working on our game, and she's very excited to be involved. I could not take this opportunity away from her to save my own skin. I could not let her abuser get to her, when she's already made the steps to distance herself from him.
There is no proof of Gabe being interested in children and there is no proof of grooming. There are no testimonies, no victims, only assumptions and speculation by anonymous people on Twitter that never knew them in person. However, every person that does know Gabe and Claire has spoken out in support of them and confirms their story.
The evidence we have seen also matches Gabe and Claire's testimony. Gabe and Claire shot a few promotional videos for work together, under the eyes of their agents and parents. That is not evidence of a close relationship. They worked in the same circles and were friendly. Not everything we see on the internet is as it appears in real life.
If I am proven wrong, I will retract this all, apologize, and remove them from our project.
Although we were affected, we need to look at how Claire and Michelle were affected, too. The two supposed victims have been rightfully upset. Their friend was being harassed in their name. I would never want someone I love to be hurt in my name. Listen to them. Listen to Claire. Listen to Michelle. Amplify their voices. Believe them, do not talk over them. They are both adults in their mid 20’s, and they are fierce, strong and independent people. After spending the last few days talking to Claire I have seen this first hand. She is inspirational, and no one can tell her what to do! I feel it is dangerous to start dismissing the accounts of victims as being unreliable.
We will continue to follow Claire and Michelle’s lead, and I hope you will do the same.
- Katie and Ash
To our wonderful community, the ones who stood by us, and trusted us to look into this, thank you. I understand it's been a tough few days for you too. Billie Bust Up is as important to you as it is to us. We will continue working for you, and being the best we can. To the people that read this and want to help you can use this document to help stop the spread of misinformation. Please be kind to the people when doing so. The hate they sent our way stems from a good place. A place that wants to protect children, and I agree with their mission statement. If you are a minor please do not get involved in debating these issues with others online on our behalf. It was an awful topic that you should not have to be involved in and after the death threats I have received, I would rather you not be on the other end of them.
To the people that thought my previous anger was directed at them for simply being concerned. I sincerely apologize. My anger was never directed at you, but I understand why you would think so. Although not an excuse, my father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and was recently admitted to hospital as an emergency around when this blew up. I vented to my discord server in what was not meant to be an official statement about the matter. My frustration was directed towards Claire's abuser and to the people that immediately shared the post as truth without waiting to cast judgment. I still stand by the fact that we should always wait in cases like these. We could end up punishing the wrong person, and in this instance, allow an abuser to continue to torture their victim.